Key examples of this trend include:

• Stripe’s “multi-processor” support: In 2024, Stripe introduced a Vault and Forward API that lets merchants use Stripe’s infrastructure alongside other processors. For instance, Stripe’s Payment Element (checkout UI) can now be used with third-party PSPs, with Stripe tokenizing cards and then forwarding transactions to other processorsstripe.com. This marks a strategic shift for Stripe, opening its once “walled garden” platform to an ecosystem of external payment providersbatchprocessing.co. The motivation is to give merchants flexibility: you can plug Stripe into a broader payments stack rather than being locked into Stripe-only processing.

• Checkout.com’s acquisition of ProcessOut: Checkout.com moved into orchestration by acquiring ProcessOut, a vendor-agnostic routing platform. ProcessOut had built a smart routing module connecting to dozens of gateways, automatically selecting the optimal provider based on fees and acceptance ratestechcrunch.com. For example, it might route a transaction to a cheaper local provider instead of a pricier one like Stripe if the data predicts the local option will still authorize successfullytechcrunch.com. This kind of logic helps merchants avoid “one-size-fits-all” processing – optimizing costs without sacrificing approval chances. Checkout.com folded this tech into its offering, signaling that even single-PSP platforms see multi-PSP orchestration as essential for enterprise merchants.

• Adyen’s intelligent routing: Adyen, traditionally a one-stop global PSP, has begun adding orchestration-like features within its own network. In late 2024, Adyen rolled out an AI-powered Intelligent Payment Routing for U.S. debit transactions. This service dynamically chooses between debit networks (e.g. Mastercard vs. regional networks) to minimize costs and boost approval ratesdigitaltransactions.netdigitaltransactions.net. In a pilot, 20 large merchants saw debit acceptance costs drop by 26% and authorization rates tick up slightly (0.22% increase) thanks to this smart routingdigitaltransactions.net. Notably, Adyen’s solution required no additional integration work by merchants – the optimization is built in on the back enddigitaltransactions.net. This illustrates a broader trend: PSPs are adding native orchestration capabilities (like automatic network selection, cascading retries, etc.) that work out-of-the-box to improve performance.

Why are PSPs doing this now? Simply put, merchants are demanding higher payment performance and more flexibility. Even the best single PSP will have variations in authorization rates across countries, card networks, or times of day. By integrating orchestration features, PSPs aim to: increase approval rates, reduce failed payments (and the involuntary churn they cause), and simplify complex setups by offering one-stop connections. For example, a merchant processing globally might want one provider for U.S. cards and another for European cards to maximize success – orchestration enables that without the merchant building a custom integration for each. PSPs also recognize that offering some orchestration capabilities can prevent merchant churn; a growing business that would otherwise outgrow a single-PSP model might stay if that PSP helps route transactions optimally to others when needed. As Stripe noted at its developer conference, users had been asking for a more “modular” Stripe that fits into their existing payment stack stripe.com – essentially, merchants want choice and higher resilience. Payment orchestration promises exactly that: better uptime (via failover routes), better conversion (via smart routing), and easier access to new payment methods or markets through one integration. In summary, major PSPs are embracing orchestration to improve outcomes (higher auth rates, lower costs) and to offer greater flexibility, all in an effort to remain the central hub for their merchants’ payment needs rather than ceding that role to third-party orchestrators.

Key Limitations in PSP-Led Orchestration Solutions

While native PSP orchestration is a positive step, these offerings still have important gaps. The “walled garden” isn’t completely gone – and independent payment orchestration platforms arose precisely to address these shortcomings. Notable limitations of PSP-provided orchestration include:

• Limited Multi-Provider Scope: Many PSPs only enable routing within a constrained set of options (often favoring their own network). As industry analysts point out, many PSPs offer services that “look a lot like” orchestration but often lack true multi-acquirer support glenbrook.com. In other words, a PSP might let you route between its own regional acquiring connections or a few partner processors, but not any provider of your choosing. The lack of full provider neutrality means merchants still don’t have unlimited choice – you can’t easily plug in a direct competitor to handle overflow traffic, for example. This contrasts with independent orchestration platforms that are provider-agnostic by design. The PSP’s dual role as both a processor and orchestrator creates inherent conflicts of interest: they’re unlikely to route transactions away from themselves unless absolutely necessary.

• Transparency and Control: Using a PSP’s built-in orchestration can be a black box. Merchants may have limited visibility into how routing decisions are made or how each processor option is performing. Data transparency is a known pain point – 82% of online retailers report difficulty even identifying the causes of failed payments pymnts.com. PSPs tend to silo data within their own system, whereas a true orchestration layer aggregates performance metrics across all providers. For example, ProcessOut (now part of Checkout.com) gained traction by giving merchants a single dashboard to visualize payment success rates and fees across multiple gatewaystechcrunch.com. That kind of cross-processor transparency is harder to achieve with a PSP-centric solution. Moreover, merchant control over routing logic can be limited with PSPs. An independent platform, by contrast, sits in a neutral position and typically allows the merchant to define rules or objectives (e.g. “maximize approval rate” or “minimize cost per transaction”) and see the results. This neutrality – sitting between various PSPs without allegiance – keeps the merchant in the driver’s seat glenbrook.com, which sophisticated merchants often prefer to maintain. With a PSP’s native tool, merchants might feel they’ve ceded some control over an increasingly critical part of their business (payments optimization).

• Smart Routing Constraints: Truly “smart” routing often means using rich data to decide, in real time, the best path for each payment. PSP-built solutions today are still relatively basic on this front. They might support rules based on card type or geography, but they may not leverage dynamic inputs like real-time gateway health, granular BIN-level success probabilities, or machine learning models (except in narrow cases like Adyen’s debit routing). Independent orchestration platforms tout the ability to route each transaction to the “optimal” processor using a variety of factors – cost, success rate history, issuer responsiveness, etc.pymnts.com. For instance, an orchestration engine might know that Gateway A has historically higher approval for a certain issuing bank, so it routes that BIN range there, whereas Gateway B is cheaper for another card type. Most PSPs do not (yet) offer that level of fine-grained routing customization or A/B testing of processors. Their orchestration features often follow simpler, static logic (e.g. primary/secondary gateway failover) rather than continuously learning and optimizing. This lack of real-time adaptive routing means merchants could be missing out on conversion gains. In one study, nearly half of merchants cited false declines as a major hit to customer satisfaction, yet the majority hadn’t implemented advanced routing strategies to address itpymnts.compymnts.com. The capability to automatically retry or reroute a transaction through an alternative path – a core promise of orchestration – is something many PSP tools handle in a limited way (if at all).

• Real-Time Adaptability: Building on the above, a key gap is how quickly and intelligently the system adapts to changing conditions. Payment performance can fluctuate hour by hour – an acquiring bank might have an outage, or a fraud system might suddenly start flagging legitimate transactions. PSP-led solutions might not detect and react to these issues as nimbly. In contrast, independent orchestration layers often focus on real-time monitoring and failover. They can instantly shift traffic if a processor is down or if authorization rates dip unexpectedly. They also enable iterative optimizations: for example, if a transaction is declined for a soft reason (like suspected fraud or network timeout), an orchestrator could immediately retry via a different route or after a brief delay. Many PSPs don’t yet offer such adaptive decisioning in real time. As a result, merchants using only a single PSP may see more failed transactions during incidents or suboptimal routing, whereas those using a sophisticated orchestration layer can recover transactions on the fly. This adaptability can directly impact revenue. (It’s telling that 61% of merchants consider payments a key area for competitive differentiation when they can leverage data and adapt – highlighting the desire for more agile, data-driven payment operationspymnts.com.)

In summary, PSP-native orchestration often improves on the status quo but still falls short of what best-in-class orchestration can achieve. The lack of broad provider choice, limited transparency into decision-making, and relatively static or one-size-fits-all logic leave opportunities on the table. These gaps have opened the door for independent orchestration providers to add value on top of or alongside the PSPs.

Independent Orchestration Layers Filling the Gaps

The shortcomings of PSP-led solutions have driven the rise of independent payment orchestration platforms. These are neutral, standalone layers whose sole focus is to optimize payments across multiple providers, putting merchant interests first. Over the past few years, a number of such platforms (e.g. Spreedly, Gr4vy, Primer, Zooz/Payu, etc.) have matured, often positioning themselves as an overlay on top of existing PSP setups. They seek to address exactly the gaps noted above:

• Any-to-Any Connectivity: Independent orchestrators pride themselves on being vendor-agnostic. They offer a single API that can connect to dozens of gateways, acquirers, and alternative payment methods. This means a merchant can switch or add providers with minimal effort, avoiding vendor lock-in. Having multiple providers in play also creates competitive tension – if one gateway performs poorly, the orchestrator can divert traffic to another. This freedom is usually greater than what a single PSP’s built-in feature will allow. Notably, before being acquired, ProcessOut boasted support for “dozens of payment providers” and the ability to route each transaction to the best option availabletechcrunch.com. That level of choice gave merchants leverage to improve terms and performance, showing the power of neutrality.

• Advanced Smart Routing & Optimization: These platforms use data as their weapon. An independent orchestration layer typically aggregates vast amounts of transaction data across all integrated providers and uses it to drive routing decisions. Machine learning and rule engines can be applied to optimize for various goals – maximize authorization rate, minimize cost, or some balance of both. For example, an orchestration platform might learn that for a certain card issuer in Brazil, Gateway X has a 5% higher approval rate than Gateway Y; the system can automatically route that issuer’s transactions to Gateway X to lift conversions. Or if a certain processor has lower fees for debit cards, the system can funnel debit traffic that way to save on cost. This kind of granular, data-driven routing is the hallmark of independent orchestrators. According to one industry report, such platforms enable “intelligent routing of payments to the optimal gateway”, preventing false declines by trying different routes and leveraging historical performance datapymnts.com. The result is recaptured revenue that would otherwise be lost to unnecessary declines, and a smoother experience for customers (fewer checkout errors)pymnts.com. Additionally, independents often provide cascading retry logic – if a payment attempt fails with Provider A, the orchestrator can instantly retry it with Provider B (or try another card network) in milliseconds, often recovering what would have been a lost sale. These capabilities go beyond what most single PSPs offer today.

• Unified Data and Transparency: A core value of independent orchestration is giving the merchant full visibility into their payment performance. All transactions across all routes flow through the orchestration layer, which can then present comprehensive analytics: authorization rates by provider, failure reasons, cost per transaction, etc., all in one place. This transparency is crucial for optimization. Merchants gain the ability to pinpoint where problems lie – for instance, if one acquirer has a higher decline rate for a certain country, the data will show it clearly, prompting a strategy change. With PSP-specific tools, such comparisons are harder (you might only see the data for that PSP, not what could have happened elsewhere). The independent platform essentially becomes the system of record for payments data, abstracting away the individual PSP silos. As noted, ProcessOut provided dashboards to “visualize payment data in a single location” and even reconcile bank statements across different providerstechcrunch.com – features that simplify finance ops and give merchants actionable insight. This level of transparency helps merchants make more informed, data-driven decisions about their payment strategypymnts.com. It also enables benchmarking: merchants can compare processors and hold them accountable for performance. In fact, the neutrality of an independent layer means it can report truthfully on a PSP’s performance without bias, something an in-house PSP tool might not readily do.

• Real-Time Adaptability and Resilience: Independent orchestrators are built to be the brain managing payments in real time. They monitor the health and outcomes of each transaction as it happens. If an issue is detected (e.g., a sudden spike in declines with one processor or a technical outage), the orchestrator can automatically reroute traffic to backup processors, often transparently. This significantly improves uptime and reliability of a merchant’s payments. For example, if a global PSP has a network outage in one region, an orchestrator could immediately shift transactions from that region to an alternate gateway, avoiding downtime. Similarly, these platforms often implement smart retry schemes for transient failures: if a card is declined for what looks like a soft reason (maybe network glitch or insufficient funds), they will retry the charge after a short delay or at a different time, possibly through a different route. By reacting in real time and learning from each failure, independent layers can recover transactions that would have been lost in a static system. This adaptability directly combats involuntary churn in subscription businesses. (Indeed, one study found 40% of subscription businesses saw rising involuntary churn, yet 79% hadn’t implemented measures like intelligent retries or multiple gateways to fight itpymnts.com. Orchestration platforms aim to close that gap by making such measures easy and automatic.) In essence, the independent orchestrator acts as a 24/7 optimization engine, tweaking and tuning the payment flow with every piece of new data – something that’s hard for a merchant (or a PSP) to replicate manually.

In practice, these independent solutions have proven their value. Many enterprise and mid-market merchants now use orchestration layers on top of or alongside their primary PSPs. The fact that Checkout.com acquired ProcessOut and Stripe is enabling multi-PSP forwarding shows that even the large PSPs acknowledge the market demand for orchestration. We’re seeing a convergence where PSPs are trying to incorporate some orchestration features, while independent providers continue to push the envelope on what’s possible (especially with AI and machine learning). This creates a structural opportunity: merchants can leverage the best of both worlds – the scale and capabilities of major PSPs, plus the agility and intelligence of an independent orchestration layer. A neutral layer can sit on top of PSPs to squeeze additional performance (higher conversion, lower cost) in a way that the PSP alone might not achieve.

FlyCode’s Approach – AI, Adaptivity, and Seamless Integration with your PSP's

One illustrative example of this new breed of independent orchestration solutions is FlyCode – a platform focused on AI-driven payment recovery and optimization. FlyCode specifically addresses the pain of failed payments and involuntary churn for subscription businesses, acting as an intelligent orchestration layer on top of existing PSPs (such as Stripe). Its strategy highlights how independent layers can fill the gaps left by PSPs:

• AI-Driven Recovery Logic: FlyCode uses machine learning models to analyze payment patterns and predict the best way to recover failed transactions. Instead of relying on a fixed retry schedule or hoping customers update their cards, FlyCode’s system dynamically responds to each failure. It proactively identifies potential payment failures (for example, a card likely to decline due to issuer behavior or insufficient funds) and automatically applies solutions to avert the failuretrendhunter.com. These solutions might include smart retry at a more optimal time, routing the payment through an alternative processor or network, or updating card details via account updater services – all handled behind the scenes. By using AI to tailor the response, FlyCode goes beyond simple rules. The goal is to maximize the chance that a transaction eventually succeeds without human intervention. According to a recent review, this AI-powered approach helps businesses “prevent failed transactions and recover lost revenue,” thereby reducing passive (involuntary) churn and maximizing revenue with minimal manual efforttrendhunter.com. In essence, FlyCode’s logic treats every failed payment as a problem to be solved (via data-driven tactics) rather than a lost cause. This contrasts with typical PSP behavior, where a decline might just result in an automated email to the customer or a few blind retry attempts.

• Adaptive Learning: A key differentiator for FlyCode is its adaptive learning capability. The platform continuously learns from each transaction outcome to refine its strategies. If a certain retry timing succeeds, that pattern is reinforced; if a certain gateway consistently performs better for a type of card or at a certain hour, the system adapts to prefer that option. Over time, this creates a self-optimizing feedback loop: FlyCode becomes more effective as it processes more payment data. This adaptive approach is crucial because the factors influencing payment success can be complex (issuer algorithms, network traffic, customer behavior, etc.). By leveraging machine learning on a large dataset of transactions, FlyCode can discover non-obvious patterns – for example, maybe payments retried on a Monday morning have higher success for a particular bank, or using Network Token A versus B yields a better outcome in a certain region. The platform’s AI models “work behind the scenes” to turn failed transactions into recovered revenueflycode.com, essentially learning the best playbook for each scenario. This contrasts with PSPs that might offer one-size-fits-all retry logic. FlyCode’s adaptive learning means its smart routing and retry decisions improve continuously, aligning with each merchant’s unique customer base and payment rhythms.

• Seamless Integration Across Existing PSP Stacks: One of the reasons many mid-sized businesses haven’t implemented sophisticated payment optimization is the integration effort – bolting on new gateways or a third-party tool can be resource-intensive. FlyCode tackles this by making integration almost frictionless. In fact, it requires virtually “zero integration” to get startedtrendhunter.com. For example, a company already using Stripe can activate FlyCode’s service without heavy engineering; FlyCode connects via APIs or even Stripe’s app marketplace to begin optimizing payments immediately. This plug-and-play design is a major advantage. It means a merchant doesn’t have to overhaul their payment system to benefit from an independent orchestration layer – FlyCode layers on top of the existing PSP setup. It listens to payment events and intervenes when needed (e.g., on a failed charge, it will kick in with a custom recovery flow). By being PSP-agnostic and easy to connect, FlyCode can work across a merchant’s entire payment stack (e.g., multiple processors, subscription billing systems, etc.) as a unifying optimization engine. The result is that companies can “quickly implement FlyCode’s features to enhance their payment infrastructure” without a lengthy deploymenttrendhunter.com. This ease of integration is critical, because speed and simplicity encourage adoption – and as noted, a huge 79% of subscription businesses had not implemented any involuntary churn prevention strategy as of last yearpymnts.com, often due to resource constraints. FlyCode essentially lowers the barrier to entry for advanced orchestration, enabling even lean teams to benefit from AI-driven payment optimization.

What impact can this have? Early indications are impressive. By focusing on failed payment recovery, FlyCode directly boosts revenue that would otherwise be lost. For instance, one customer case study saw their failed payment recovery rate jump from 51% to 66% in just one month after using FlyCode’s solutionflycode.com. That 15 percentage-point increase translates to a substantial reduction in churn and a significant increase in retained revenue, purely from smarter payment handling. Another way to view it: FlyCode advertises that on average, businesses can increase annual recurring revenue by ~8% through its machine-learning optimizationsflycode.com – a meaningful uplift in subscription-driven models. These gains come from capturing payments that would have failed due to issues like expired cards, temporary declines, or suboptimal routing. By recovering those payments (or preventing the failures outright), FlyCode not only puts money back in the merchant’s pocket but also preserves the customer relationship (the subscriber never unintentionally loses access due to a payment glitch). This addresses the core of involuntary churn, which as noted can account for 20–40% of all churntruelayer.com – a huge area of opportunity for improvement.

Crucially, FlyCode achieves this in tandem with the merchant’s existing PSPs. It doesn’t ask you to drop Stripe or Adyen; rather, it augments them. This speaks to a broader industry pattern: independent orchestration layers like FlyCode are not replacing PSPs, but enhancing them. By layering intelligence on top of payment processors, they turn payments into a more optimized, resilient process. It’s an example of how the ecosystem is evolving – collaboration between core payment infrastructure providers and specialized optimization services. In FlyCode’s case, the focus is narrow but vital: ensure that when a customer wants to pay, every reasonable step is taken to make that payment succeed (or to fix it quickly if it fails). That focus and neutrality allow independent players to innovate rapidly on features like AI-driven retries, which a generalist PSP might not prioritize to the same degree.

Outlook: The Road Ahead for Payments Orchestration

The ongoing shift in this space suggests that payment orchestration is moving from a niche concept to a mainstream capability. Major PSPs incorporating orchestration features is a form of validation – it acknowledges that merchants see tangible value in multi-provider strategies, smart routing, and payment optimization. At the same time, the persistence of gaps in PSP solutions means independent orchestration platforms have a strong role to play and significant room to innovate. We’re likely heading toward a model where hybrid payment stacks become the norm: a merchant might use one primary PSP for convenience, but also deploy an overlay of intelligent orchestration to maximize performance.

This dynamic is analogous to how, in other industries, core systems are complemented by optimization layers (for example, think of how search engines are core, but SEO and analytics tools sit on top to extract more value). In payments, the core PSP processes the transactions, but the orchestration layer optimizes how those transactions are routed and recovered. The net effect for merchants is a more robust and revenue-maximizing payment operation.

From a market perspective, we are on the rising slope of the payments tech maturity curve in this domain. A decade ago, the big story was the rise of modern PSPs with easy APIs (the “Stripe era”). Now, the narrative is shifting to orchestration and optimization – getting more out of those payment rails. Industry observers have noted that “the next decade of payments innovation” will be defined by payment orchestration, with solutions that truly work in favor of merchants by unlocking revenue and efficiencyactivantcapital.com. All signs point to that becoming reality: merchants large and small are increasingly aware that optimizing payments can yield huge gains (for instance, hundreds of billions in e-commerce revenue are lost annually to false declines and payment frictionspymnts.com). As this awareness grows, so too will adoption of orchestration strategies.

We can expect PSPs to continue enhancing their native offerings – perhaps adding more AI, more transparency, and broader integrations. Simultaneously, independent players like FlyCode will push the envelope, perhaps expanding into AI-driven decisioning that encompasses not just retries but also things like dynamic fraud tool selection, intelligent payment method suggestions, or routing based on real-time risk assessments. Over time, some consolidation may occur (as we saw with acquisitions like ProcessOut) or partnerships between PSPs and orchestrators (similar to how Stripe is partnering with select local PSPs to complement its networkstripe.com).

For now, merchants evaluating their payment strategy should view this as a two-layer opportunity: use a solid PSP (or a few) for global coverage and basic processing, and consider an independent orchestration layer as the optimization engine to drive better outcomes. The end goal is simple: maximize revenue conversion and minimize friction in the payment process. Payment orchestration – whether delivered by a PSP or an independent platform – is the means to that end. What’s exciting is that the ecosystem is aligning around this goal. The recent moves by Stripe, Adyen, and others indicate a convergence toward more open, intelligent payment systems. And with specialists like FlyCode demonstrating what’s possible (AI recovering revenue automatically), the bar is being set higher for everyone.

In summary, the market is witnessing an important evolution: payments are no longer just about processing transactions, but about orchestrating them for optimal results. The winners in this space will be merchants and platforms that leverage these orchestration capabilities to turn payments from a cost center into a competitive advantage. As payment orchestration becomes more ubiquitous and AI-driven over the coming years, we’ll likely look back on this period as a turning point – when the industry collectively realized that smarter payments infrastructure can materially boost the bottom line and improve customer experience. The orchestration trend is here to stay, and it’s reshaping the payments landscape into a more flexible, data-driven, and resilient ecosystem for all participants.

Sources:

Supporting information and examples have been drawn from recent industry analyses and reports. Stripe’s introduction of multi-processor support was detailed in its 2024 product announcementsstripe.com. Checkout.com’s orchestration strategy via ProcessOut, including smart routing based on fees and success rates, was covered by TechCrunchtechcrunch.com. Adyen’s launch of AI-powered debit routing (achieving 26% cost savings) illustrates PSPs adding optimization featuresdigitaltransactions.net. Analysts at Glenbrook and others have noted the neutrality and multi-acquirer support that independent orchestration platforms provide, versus PSPs’ more limited offeringsglenbrook.comglenbrook.com. The benefits of intelligent routing and payment data insights (higher approvals, lower false declines) have been highlighted in collaboration research by PYMNTS and Spreedlypymnts.com. Challenges around involuntary churn and the lack of mitigation at many firms were quantified in that same research (40% experiencing more involuntary churn, 79% without a strategy)pymnts.com, underscoring the need for solutions like FlyCode. FlyCode’s capabilities in AI-powered retries and zero-integration deployment were described in a Tech Trend reviewtrendhunter.com, and a customer’s 15% improvement in recovery rate was reported in FlyCode’s case studyflycode.com. These examples collectively demonstrate the current market movement and the structural opportunities for independent orchestration layers to complement and elevate the offerings of major PSPs.